


Surprisingly Good at Research

by Ael_tRlailiiu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ael_tRlailiiu/pseuds/Ael_tRlailiiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing Belle and Hook, I figure there's no way they didn't have a conversation in the shop during "Quiet Minds." This little trifle is my stab at that, and mostly an excuse to try to look inside Killian's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprisingly Good at Research

The door closed. The bell's jingle died away and left heavy silence. Killian watched Belle search the shelves, saw her anxious haste.

“Feel free to excoriate me a bit, if you'd like,” he offered. The shop made him twitchy on a good day, something about being surrounded by things traded away in desperate need. Between the argument with Swan and the discovery in the storm cellar, today was not a good day.

“I don't think we need to discuss it.” Belle pulled another book from the shelf and added it to her stack. Determination did not overshadow the tremulous hope in her expression.

He knew that light. Half of his dreams for months had been of searching for something, of walking endlessly on a dark shore or in a wood. Always he carried some faint and guttering light, a candle stub or inadequate torch—people overrated the subtlety of the dream world. By day, he had done his best at first to douse it. Neither blood nor rum nor seawater had done the job, and so he had learned to live with that glimmer of a hopeless hope. One day an exhausted dove had come to rest on the ship's wheel and brought it to blazing life.

But that was Emma, the brightest star in any sky, who had that rare strength that lifted everyone around her. If the Dark One could cause that shine of hope, perhaps mortals were not meant to understand much at all.

“Where shall we start, then?”

“Here.” She brought a half dozen books over. “See if there's anything about... about the Dark One in these. The older the better, if there is something worthwhile, it will be far in the past.”

“Predating Rumplestiltskin's assumption of the role, then.” He opened the topmost book.

Belle looked up, her glance wary. “So you know how that works.”

“Baelfire told me about the dagger.”

“That's why you came looking for me. To get ahold of that.”

“Aye.” The book held more legend than lore about the Dark One. Decimating armies, withering crops, stealing children in the night, causing plagues, _stopping_ plagues, coming and going in clouds of smoke – if anything uncanny had happened anywhere in the past few centuries, someone was going to credit Rumplestiltskin. Useless for their needs. Killian set it aside and opened the next one.

“What would you have done with it?”

“Beg your pardon?” He glanced up to find Belle studying him. He found it difficult to look at this dark-haired girl and not remember Milah. So many long years later, the memory of her eyes had not dimmed, full of pain and fear. She had never been afraid of anything before that moment.

“With the dagger. The power.”

“That's a rather interesting question. Been thinking about trying on scales, have you?”

“Of course not.” She shot him a look of distaste. “But you were set on killing him for a very long time.”

“I was.” Killian was not about to try to explain to this strangely innocent woman what it was like in that iron sea of bitterness and grief—like being exhausted beyond bearing, the mind able to hold only one thing, one motion, one intention, and beyond it blessed oblivion. He had never even looked for a shore.

“And not many people know anything about his curse. I'd like to know their intentions if they do.”

“Put your mind to rest, darling. I'm a simple man. Power has never been an interest of mine, and I've no inclination to spend eternity subservient to a chunk of metal. Hence the poison.”

“And now? Since he is alive.” She frowned down at the page before her, then glanced up again. “You. Ah.”

“Will I be attempting to part him from that state?” Killian ran the hook's tip over the desk. After all these years, he knew exactly how much pressure it would take to scratch the wood, to scar it, to break it. Like any other ocean, once that despairing sea has taken you in, you are never wholly free of her. Her waves had been loud that morning with the empty cage and the spinning wheel. “Death ought to give a man a clean slate if anything does. As long as he gives me no fresh cause, I shall return none.” He would not stake a large sum on that remaining the case for long.

“Thank you.”

“Don't mention it.”

A long silence fell. Paper murmured, and Belle hummed occasionally as she found something promising. Three more useless books made their way to the other stack. The phone refused to ring, to provide any update from Emma on their search.

He could picture her and almost smile: her brow creased with concentration, the easy swing of her stride when she felt in her element, the lift of her chin... that flinty, distrustful stare. _As usual, he wasn't who he said he was._

Perhaps time would help. Emma had after all spent the past year in a pleasant cocoon, not a hell of her own making. (There was a reckoning yet to be had there. Rumplestiltskin was not the only one who could cast up accounts.) Only a few days had passed for her. She had Henry to worry about, and Neal, and her soon-to-arrive sibling, and her whole illusory future turned upside down.

A tricky wind, that Swan. This was not the time for anything he wanted to say, nor did he need to say it. She knew. She made that clear every time she looked away, every time she dropped her guard, and every time she fled the consequences. It might feel a bit like being slowly flayed, but that flicker of hope still lived. With any other woman he would have long since shrugged and moved on, but his heart had done something strange and painful the moment he realized what the message meant.

The next book looked promising. Killian got lost for a while in the astronomical calculations required for certain curses, in star patterns he knew better than the backs of his own eyelids. They were fainter here, not the crystal river he was used to seeing spill across the sky, but their shapes were the same.

“Having any luck?” he ventured.

“Not at the moment. This fellow was talking half in code and mostly to himself.”

“Trade you, then? Every code has a key. This is a bit heavy on theory for me.”

“I suppose it can't hurt.” She pushed the heavy, handwritten volume over in exchange for the one he had been looking at.

Danger or no, this was the closest he'd come to fun in months. As luck would have it, he found the key quickly. Belle no doubt would have in time, but alchemical terms had changed in the past few centuries. Fleeting memories of other lives, of candle-lit drawing rooms and conversations with men and women long dead, Liam's dry laughter... he hunted up a piece of paper and one of the ingenious pens of this world.

The translation now a matter of rote, his thoughts revolved as they usually did, tending his own bit of light. Emma had trusted him, memories or no. She had dropped her guard out there in the woods, had told him the truth. Whether or not that meant anything, he could not be sure. From all he had ever seen of Emma Swan, she wouldn't shy off from saying no. If she meant to do so, the moment had come and gone several times, unused.

_Not no_ was still a world apart from _yes_ , alas. Killian gave the satchel on the floor a rueful look. Whatever came next, he would meet it unburdened by material possessions. He didn't regret the decision, but he did miss her, wondered where the ship was now—under way, he hoped, bound for some distant horizon. He put the thought away. More books came and went, offered elusive hints of true history among the nonsense and legends.

Belle cleared her throat. “So, what do you think of Storybrooke?”

“I've actually seen very little of it, what with one thing and another. Appears to be a pleasant enough spot.” Although not, perhaps, one in which to spend the rest of his life.

“There's not a great deal to see. It's a quiet little town. Well, some of the time.”

“If you find the place confining, there's rather a large world beyond it. Once the flying monkey situation is resolved, of course. I can recommend New York as quite the change of pace.”

She looked up, perplexed. “When...? I mean, surely not—not last year.”

“I had a bit of time to kill there recently.” Two very long days and nights he had mostly spent on the move. Thank whatever gods this land held for a lifetime of practice at finding his feet in strange cities.

“Well... what was it like, then?” Curiosity warred with the distrust still evident in her expression.

“Lively. Loud.” The city had been full of music and light, of languages only half-strange. He did his best with it, the alien bulk of the place and the familiar atoms that comprised it, the lights on the bridges and the rivers of humanity that flowed through the streets.

“It does sound worth a trip.” For a moment Belle almost smiled. “I keep forgetting that you weren't here, before. That all of this is new.”

Killian shrugged. “One gets used to things.”

“Why did you come back, then?”

“Sorry?”

“The first time. To Storybrooke. With the bean.”

“You're quite curious today.” He opened another book and looked at the title page without seeing it. Emma was not here; he settled on, “An unpaid debt,” as a true enough answer.

“I always wanted to travel. Back home. To see the world. To have adventures.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “See where that got me.”

“You're still alive.”

“Only thanks to Regina, of all people. And only because she wanted me to use against Rumple. That's all it seems anyone ever wants from me. Except for... him.”

“Occupational hazard, luv, aligning yourself with someone that powerful. If you wanted a quiet life, I'd say you've chosen rather poorly.” And what would you be wanting, Jones? Not a quiet life, for certain.

Belle snorted and stood up. “I need to look up some cross-references.”

Killian followed her into the other room and took the books as she handed them down.

“Watch the cover on that one.”

He restrained a sigh. “Dealing with a hook, here.”

Something banged on the shop's front door.


End file.
